This paper examines the effects of environmental vulnerability on the risk of child marriage in Bangladesh. Community vulnerability measures are constructed for 240 rural communities in eight districts according to the presence of three indicators of environmental vulnerability—history of cyclones, flooding, and waterlogging. Community data are linked to individual-level adolescent survey data from a representative sample of 15,000 adolescent girls in those communities. Types of environmental vulnerability and the effect on adolescent girls’ marriage outcomes have been explored using discrete time survival analysis. Results show that coastal communities with prolonged waterlogging and salinity have significantly higher child marriage rates, and there is no evidence of higher risks of child marriage in flood-affected areas. The paper concludes that slow and rapid onset events vary in their impact on child marriage. It is important to distinguish between rapid onset factors, such as floods and cyclones, and slow and less dramatically visible factors, such as waterlogging, that affect marriage through longer-term impacts on lives and livelihoods. Programs need to cast a wider net to safeguard girls living in the communities not only where immediate and sudden environmental emergencies have occurred but also in the areas where climate-induced disasters may not seem very visible but have slow, cascading effects and pose a risk for child marriage.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/DTNJ3762Date of Publication May 2024KeywordsChild Marriage, Environmental Vulnerability, Adolescent Girls, Bangladesh, Salinity, Waterlogging, Climate ChangeJEL Classification: F63, J12Recommended CitationAinul, S., Saha, J., Hossain, M. I., & Amin, S. (2022). Climate change and child marriage: evidence from Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 45(1&2), 1-25. https://doi.org/10.57138/VNEO7557

The paper argues that much of the farm-nonfarm labour mobility in rural Bangladesh is, in nature, an intergenerational occupational choice-induced change rather than a sectoral shift within the current generation. Bangladesh has a large share of youth (aged 15-29 years) in the labour force, and it experienced a major structural shift in employment between 1995 and 2010 as agricultural employment fell from 51.4 per cent to 42.3 per cent. Much of this shift has been due to changes in youth employment, as youth employment in agriculture fell from 49.8 per cent to 33.1 per cent. The cohort analysis (pseudo-panel) shows that the reduction in the share of the male youth population working in agriculture is due mainly to a sharp reduction in the percentage of youth who start out in agriculture rather than a shift by individuals from agricultural to non-agricultural employment during their lifetime. Analysis of correlates of the nonfarm orientation of rural youth indicates the importance of gender, human capital, access to electricity, proximity to cities, and migration opportunities. The results suggest the importance of supporting rural industry and service activities to meet the future demand for jobs for the rural youth.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/XBDP9262Date of Publication May 2024KeywordsRural Employment, Agricultural Transformation, Rural Labour Markets, Development StrategyJEL Classification CodeJ13, J21, J24, J43, J46Recommended CitationDorosh, P., Sen, B., Asselt, J. V., & Ahmed, M. (2024). Farm-Nonfarm labour mobility in rural Bangladesh: intersectoral shift of intergenerational occupational choice? The Bangladesh Development Studies, 45(1&2), 27-53. https://doi.org/10.57138/XBDP9262

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced educational institutions in Bangladesh to adopt online technology for higher education in just a couple of months, which otherwise would have taken years. This change creates a unique opportunity to examine student performance in online education. In addition to examining the effect of online education on student performance, this paper investigates if there is a systematic difference in grading. Transcript-level academic records of Business and Economics students from one of the leading private universities in Bangladesh for pre-pandemic and pandemic periods have been used in this paper. The multilevel nested panel structure of the data allows the elimination of individual, time, course, and instructor-level fixed effects that may bias the findings of the study.  The results show that student-level grade points in online format are higher by about 0.208 (on a scale of 0 to 4) compared to student-level grade points in face-to-face format. This increase in grade points in the online format is driven by poorly performing students. Course level estimates show that the average grade points (AGP) increase by about 0.086 in the online format, which comes from a narrower distribution, indicating a systematic difference in grading in the online format.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/RWXH4322Date of Publication May 2024KeywordsCOVID-19, Education, Online Education, Student Performance, Cheating, BangladeshJEL Classification CodeA20, I21, I23Recommended CitationHaque, N., Basher, S. A., & Haque, A. K. E. (2024). Do students perform better in online delivery of education? Evidence from Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 45(1&2), 55-85. https://doi.org/10.57138/RWXH4322

Fluctuations in the oil price profoundly impact many other prices in the economy, as oil is used to produce numerous goods and services. While literature is ample regarding the linear relationship between crude oil prices and food prices, academic discussion on the presence of non-linear relationships is relatively evolving. This paper strives to explore the existence of both linear and non-linear relationships between crude oil price and food price in Bangladesh by employing the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model, respectively. The ARDL model indicates that the crude oil price has a linear and positive impact on food price inflation in Bangladesh. The NARDL model finds no asymmetric relationship between the two variables in the long run. As a result, in the long run, the response of food price inflation in Bangladesh is the same whether oil prices increase or decrease. However, the NARDL model reveals that the change in oil prices asymmetrically impacts food price inflation only in the short run. These findings are essential for further study, and the results can be used for policymaking to ensure food security in Bangladesh. DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/EDWU7929Date of Publication May 2024KeywordsFood, Price Inflation, Crude Oil Price, ARDL, Asymmetric ARDLJEL Classification CodeC22, E31Recommended CitationAlauddin, M., Ferdous, R., Nessa, H. T., & Biswas, J. (2024). Oil and food prices in Bangladesh: a linear and non-linear ARDL analysis. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 45(1&2), 87-109. https://doi.org/10.57138/RWXH4322

This short note estimates the economic value of women’s unpaid household service work in Bangladesh using data from the Time Use Survey 2021 of BBS. This survey collected detailed information 17,772 respondents (10,024 female and 7,748 male) from 8,000 households on how individuals aged 15 years and older spent their time over a 24-hour period in a day on various activities. Productive time of all household members is divided into three categories: i) household chores (e.g. cooking, cleaning, etc.); ii) caregiving services for household members; and iii) paid and self-employed work. The first two categories comprise unpaid household service work. Data show that women and men spent 7 hours and 6.9 hours on productive work, respectively. In order to estimate the total economic value of women’s unpaid work, we follow an input-based replacement cost approach with generalist wage rates. Our estimate shows that the valuation of women’s unpaid care work is BDT 5,307 billion, which is equivalent to 14.8 per cent of the GDP in 2021. This figure is a meagre 2.8 per cent of GDP for men.DOI: https://doi.org/10.57138/ZVIH4105Date of Publication May 2024KeywordsUnpaid Work, Time Use Survey, Economic Valuation, Time AllocationJEL Classification CodeJ17, J22Recommended CitationSen, B., Ahmed, T., Iqbal, K., & Yunus, M. (2024). Economic valuation of women's unpaid household service work in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Development Studies, 45(1&2), 111-127. https://doi.org/10.57138/ZVIH4105